He’s seen a little more sense of urgency from head coach Brian Kelly and wide receivers coach Charley Molnar as they prepare their game plan along with offensive coordinator Joe Quinn to try to beat Tresey, the USF defensive coordinator who held the same position at UC for the past two years.

“The coaches, they’re all licking their chops,” Gilyard said. “They can’t wait to play Coach Tresey down there. Coach Molnar, I’ve never seen that look in his eyes like he has this week. Coach Kelly as well. Those guys are really, really ready to get us going for this game.

“Coach Molnar, he’s a mad scientist. When he and Coach Quinn and Coach Kelly put their brains together, that’s a dangerous combination.”

Kelly agreed that there is a little more bounce in the coaches’ steps this week, but it has more to do with returning to Big East play than anything relating to Tresey.

“We’ve been non-league since Rutgers (the first week of the season),” Kelly said. “When it’s a conference game it takes on a different approach. Everybody knows you’re back in Big East play. You know what’s at stake. What’s got our guys charged up and our staff is that we’re back in the Big East.”

One of the things Kelly and his assistants have focused on this week is getting maximum use out of Gilyard, the Bearcats’ most potent offensive weapon.

It’s not like Gilyard hasn’t been a huge part of the offense all season. He leads the Bearcats in receptions with 38, is second in the Big East Conference in receiving yards per game (103.4) and leads the league in scoring with 54 points.

But Kelly is looking for other ways to utilize his talents.

“We have to find different ways to get him the football,” Kelly said. “If you line him up as the outside receiver to the field, you can roll coverage and double him, but if you put him in some different positions…Maybe you can put him in the backfield a little bit.”

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Gilyard was double-teamed two weeks ago at Miami, which created opportunities for the other UC receivers and for the running game. Gilyard still managed to catch six passes for 75 yards and one more touchdown.

Kelly wants to make sure that trend continues, so that if opponents focus on stopping Gilyard they’ll pay for it.

“There will be times when we want you to double him so that if you do double him other things open for us because we’re very confident in our other players,” Kelly said. “This isn’t always about the offense has to run through Mardy but it does require us to be creative in making sure he gets the touches.”

The double teams that Miami employed did not surprise Gilyard, nor he says, did they bother him very much.

“I really don’t pay attention to the double coverage, to be honest,” Gilyard said. “The coaches got me ready for this during the offseason. They spent a lot of time getting me double coverage in camp so I could get used to being harassed. It showed me how to slow everything down and pick out the weaknesses in the double team. I was able to do that at Miami.”

With the Bearcats in Tampa, Gilyard will be playing three hours from his hometown of Bunnell, Fla. He’ll have plenty of friends and family on hand to see him compete in his home state for what could be his last time as a college player.

He’s especially eager to face USF linebacker Chris Robinson, a childhood friend who is the Bulls’ third leading tackler.

“I’ve been calling him for like two weeks and he ain’t been picking his phone up,” Gilyard said. “I guess he don’t want to fight with me because he knows I’m going to talk junk to him. I call him every year about the same time and talk smack to him for about 10 minutes and he kind of hangs up on me.”